Five Things I Would Do if I Could Travel Back in Time

According to the physicists, time travel is possible but only into the future, so there’s no chance for me to go back in time and zip up my slacks before my presentation to the senior vice presidents in 2003.

Nor is there any hope that I’ll be able to go back in time and make out with James Fraser, the sexy 18th century Scotsman who is the love interest of heroine Claire Randall in Diane Galbadon’s Outlander series of books about love and sex and time travel. The books are coming to television this summer in a miniseries on Starz.

I’m currently reading the first book, Outlander. The novel was published in the UK under the title Cross Stitchand I guess I understand why the publishers changed the title for the American audience because Cross Stitch sounds to this American like a murder mystery involving embroidery rather than science fiction involving time travel and sex: the protagonist, Claire Randall, gets it on a lot with her 20th century husband, Frank, in the first fifty pages or so, and, although I haven’t gotten that far yet, I’m expecting her to get it on, a lot, with her 18th century lover in future chapters.

I’m not sure if the first thing I would do as a time traveler would be to have sex but it would certainly be in the top five. I don’t think it counts as cheating if you have sex in a time where it is theoretically impossible for you to be, right? Well, I’m not going to count it.

They’re having sex in there.

Speaking of physicists and their strange ideas about time-space travel, when I was in college I triggered an absolute melt down in a physics major when I suggested that astronauts had sex in space. He was excitedly telling me about the latest space shuttle mission (that’s nerd for flirting) when I interrupted his explanation of trajectory and aerobraking by asking (and this is nerd for foreplay), “Do you think they’ve had sex on the Space Shuttle?”

He insisted they didn’t, and I insisted they must have, and, yada yada yada*, I never had sex with him.

Anyway, here are the top five things I would do if I could travel back in time.

Zip up my pants.

Kill Hitler.

Tell Einstein that it appears he was wrong about the time travel thing.

Ha! You know I was talking with another blogger the other day about the difference between men and women with regard to sexual regrets (there was a study done recently, of course!): women regret sex they did have, while men regret the sex they didn’t have. I can’t think of a time I passed on sex that I now regret, but there are a couple of times I wish I had stayed vertical (oh, I know you can have sex standing up, too, but it was the least offensive euphemism I can think of this early in the morning!

Actually, I was a Montreal Expos fan more than anything. I was the greatest Montreal Expos fan ever. But then they vanished, and my heart was broken. I settled on the Yankees but it’s not the same type of love.

Heh heh … this was pretty funny. The title of your blog post is strange … but the reasoning fits.

I do have my own theories about time travel … but I won’t mention it here. I explained it to my wife once … she just rolled her eyes and gave me the, “you’re such a nerd” look. Which is sad given that she’s kind of the nerdy one. :)